When users struggle to claim an airdrop, the big friend.techwell drops tokens

The largest airdrop receiver on Friend.tech sold all of its tokens just hours after the airdrop threatened the token's price action.

A few hours after the Friends.tech airdrop went live on May 3, blockchain data shows that the biggest whale, dubbed “Murphys1d,” sold more than 55,000 newly issued Friends tokens.

Beyond the selloff, some users were unable to claim their assets due to the weather, including crypto investor Luke Martin, who wrote in a May 3 X post.

“Seeing my airdrop price go from 7 figures to 5 figures in 2 hours, refreshing the page trying to claim…still can't claim. Add insult to injury.

Martin added that the whale wallet appeared to be linked to an inactive fake X account, which allowed him to withdraw 500,000 Friend.tech points risk-free.

The new Friend.tech (FRIEND) token has fallen over 52.5% since its launch, from $3.26 to $1.32 as of 9:50 am UTC. According to CoinGecko data, the price of the token has dropped by more than 32% in the last hour.

While the sale of a large Friend.tech well may impact the market in the short term, it won't necessarily determine the token's long-term direction, according to Andy Lean, blockchain expert and author of NFT: Zero to Hero. Leanne told Cointelegraph:

While it can lead to short-term price declines due to increased supply and panic selling, it doesn't always mean a long-term downward trend. To me, that's a good thing… Selling means decentralized distribution of tokens. Widespread distribution reduces the risk of one party having too much control over the project.

However, Lian explained that the value of the token will mainly depend on the community's trust in Friend.tech and how the team handles the current situation.

Related: LayerZero's cross-chain interoperability protocol completes first Airdrop snapshot

Airdrop farmers continue to disrupt token launches.

The mysterious Friend.tech whale is an example of a professional airdrop farmer (scooter), which interacts with protocols only for airdrop rewards, often from multiple wallets to rewards.

The main issue with airdrop farmers is that they tend to sell all of their airdropped tokens into the market, creating a huge selling pressure, leading to more panic selling by legitimate protocol users.

An example of this was in late April, when the Omni Network OMNI token dropped 55% in less than 18 hours following its airdrop, losing more than half of its market capitalization.

In the year In March 2023, airdrop hunters were revealed to have merged $3.3 million worth of tokens from an Arbitrum ARB airdrop from 1,496 wallets into two wallets they controlled.

Related: ‘Mr. 100' Buys Bitcoin Dip For First Time After Halving – Is BTC Bottoming?